You are invited to follow the developing life of Baby Boardy as the BB ventures from life in the amniotic swamp to the bright city lights of Melbourne.

Saturday, February 11, 2006

The Birthing Starts...

After a light lunch of a sandwich, and a little more monitoring of the surges and the BB's heartbeat, we were encouraged to head on down to Lygon Street for a coffee, or in our case, a hot chocolate from Koko Black (we didn't realise there was one in Carlton!)

Through all of this, it seems that the techniques we had learned through the HypnoBirthing classes were working - and even though we knew we were at the early stages, it was still comforting to get that encouragement from what we were experiencing. The photo, below, was taken during surges that were coming around every 2.5 mins, and were quite strong.There was a point, at round 4pm when Nai started to lose her focus. Pretty much, within a few 'surges' they started becoming 'contractions' - ie: they were really hurting. The colour drained from her face, and she was starting to groan. I was getting really worried, that all of the effort we had put in would have only got us this far. But I managed to talk her through it (as I'd been instructed) and bring her focus back upon the breath and her awareness that her body knew what to do. Within 20 seconds she relaxed again - much as she appeared above.

Every hour or so, the midwife (who, by that stage, was Thea, as Ruth's shift had finished) was monitoring our progress. She'd put the monitor on to see the BB's heart-rate and occasionally also monitor Nai's surges. She was also taking Nai's temperature, which thankfully had gone down. Unfortunately, Nai was feeling a bit ill (which is common during birthing) and so I don't think lunch really got used per se.

By about 7pm, although the surges (and other indicators of labour) seemed to be progressing extremely well, the BB's heart-rate was starting to go down during the surges. This is generally known as foetal distress. This is often a key indicator that there is going to have to be some sort of intervention. This was monitored over the next few hours and Dr Lionel, who as you have probably read, has one of the lowest rates of Caesarians in Australia, said "I can't keep watching this. We have to get this baby out".

There was never any stress, or real urgency communicated towards us. Even Dr Lionel's statement was more 'matter of fact' (as is his way) than made in exasperation. Consequently, we do prefer calling it an 'Unplanned caesarian' rather than an 'emergency caesarian'. We didn't see any flashing lights, no-one said 'STAT' and there was no machine that goes 'Ping'.

So Thea and Lionel wheeled Nai's bed to theatre, with me walking beside. Lionel and I went to get changed, and Thea and Nai went into the theatre proper so she could be prepped.